Perkins 4108 won’t start on start battery will start on house

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by chasfgr

Dirty terminal connections - it's probably easiest to replace with new.
Check the return to the engine block - sometimes the problem is at that fixing.

Unless you have an odd system, the solenoid is the same whether you use the house bank or the starter battery, so it should not be a problem with the solenoid.

Al, S/V Finlandia

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Lightssurfer

Hi cruisers
I have a Perkins 4108 won’t start on start battery goes click click
I haven’t had boat long so still coming to grips with electrical system

Starts fine if use both house and start battery

Start battery has been replaced ..
I Fully charged battery on trickle charge then
Hooked it back up
Put multi meter on battery 12.98
Turned Engine on 14.02 volts
At 2000 rpm 14.45 to 14.65
Put system under load - turned all electrical stuff on
Held 14.45 volts
Connection to starter motor good and checked all connections clean and secure.
So probably not alternator ?
Is it solenoid?
Ideas please to locate problem
Thanks in advance

There is a plastic multi wire connector, usually at the rear of the engine. It connects the panel to the engine etc. It's like 6-10 wires or so. Clean it.
It can get damp or corroded inside and this happens. It happened to me multiple times with my 4-108 and I finally found it!
Another thread had the same issue and I just recently got notified that this was the issue and "thanks!"
Check yours.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

If the engine starts ok off the house bank it cannot be the solenoid. Check all wiring from start battery to switch - as posted both positive and negative. Not just the lugs but the cable itself.

I wish a lot of people would throw away their voltmeter unless they know that having X amount of voltage means nothing if it is without a load. You could measure it as being good voltage at the end of 22AWG wire which would smoke if used going to the starter. A bad battery can read good voltage not under load. A simple book on DC fundamentals would pay for itself.

[ZFG]

did you ever find a solution to this? I had a similar situation today. Went to start the motor to charge the house bank (had been sitting on anchor fo 3? days). and when pressing the start button the voltage meter dropped, but nothing happened. no crank, nothing. I switched the combiner switch to both and it fired up.

new starter battery this year, combined bus bar so the starter battery ground is going to the same bus bar as the house and then to the engine.

as a sanity check i shut the motor off and turned the selector switch back to isolate the house/start bank and cranked it and it fired up again...so Im not sure what happened the first time where the start button didnt do anything (tried a number of times, turning ignition off/on and the key off/on). The start battery is isolated with a digital duo charger, and read 12.8 all while this is happening.